SWINTON Castle, near Masham, is being used as a family home again for the first time in more than 25 years.

Newly-weds Mr Mark Cunliffe-Lister and his wife, Felicity, above, have moved back into his ancestral home and have plans to open it as a hotel early next year.

Mr Cunliffe-Lister's great grandmother Molly, Countess of Swinton, was the last member of the family to live in the house in the 1970s.

It was sold by the family in 1980 to the Lindley educational trust, which used it as a management training centre, but was recently bought back.

Mr and Mrs Cunliffe-Lister, who are both aged 29 and met at Durham university in 1989, decided after their marriage to leave their respective careers as a senior geophysicist and a solicitor and move back into the ancestral home.

They are planning an extensive programme of restoration to return the property to its former glory before opening it as a hotel next March.

The first house to be built on the site was in 1695, and work began on the gardens in 1698. Swinton Park took its present form in the 1890s, when Samuel Cunliffe-Lister added a third storey to the south and north wings.

The house is surrounded by a deer park, landscaped gardens and woodlands including a series of five lakes.